Cynicism
by Aislinn Gesine
Summary: Nothing means anything, in this down-and-dirty half-light. It's who he knows, and how he knows them, and what he can get out of them. Nothing more.


There was never anything to it.

He saw her dancing one day, in an alley, just moving to the music that was always ricocheting off the concrete of the decomposing city. She swung her hips, rolled her body, made her chest pop like a mutated heartbeat in the dim half-light. He stopped more for entertainment than anything else, but when she arched her back, dropped her head over her shoulder, and he saw that her eyes were closed, he moved on impulse.

She started when his hand landed on her shoulder: a small start, quickly smothered, but enough to tell him that she hadn't expected anyone. Either she was naïve as a newborn, or there was a border he hadn't known he'd crossed.

Not that it mattered. Borders didn't exist for him.

She had her hand up in an instant, an old gun with the weight of efficacy pressed to the underside of his chin. His needle was behind her neck just as fast. They froze, measuring the threat, the position of the weapons, the pressure on the triggers. Their eyes were locked steady, trying to gauge the other's reaction—a useless effort, in a time where people didn't know how not to lie. A second passed.

The gun went back in its holster, the needle back in its slot. He grabbed the back of her neck, she the front of his jacket, and their lips crashed together. He tugged on her hair—short, straight, cut to hide an eye he didn't yet know didn't exist—, and she retaliated by biting his lip hard enough to draw blood. He hissed into her mouth and grabbed her around the waist; his grip on her hip bone would leave bruises. She ground her pelvis against his and ripped another hiss from his throat.

The sex was forceful, rude, and bruising, and was more of a battle than anything else. They tried to see who could wring more moans, who could cause more pain. There was no clear winner in the end.

When he let her down, she had to lean against the wall. Her face never betrayed an inch of discomfort, though he knew from how she bent her legs that she was sore. She adjusted her skirt as he tucked himself back into his pants, and when he looked up, he saw her eyeing the blue vials on his belt.

He offered her one. It had been good sex, and she would owe him.

To his surprise, she turned it down.

"No thanks," she said, the first words either of them had spoken. "I get mine elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?" He frowned.

"Relax, Graverobber." She placed one hand flat on his chest, a smirk in her voice that triggered something in his gut. "You don't have competition. I earn my hits other ways."

He wasn't sure what she meant, but she turned to go then, sauntering off down the alley in her high black boots. The stiff bend in her legs was gone.

The second meeting came a week later. This time around, she found him, while he was lounging in one of his preferred dumpsters. He was reading a cheap magazine, half-asleep and not paying attention to the world. A shadow fell over the words, rendering them invisible; He looked up, expecting to see one of his regulars, and instead found himself looking down the barrel of her gun.

He moved his head. She was smirking.

He offered a vial. She declined.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"To taunt you," she said.

He lifted himself out of the dumpster. She stepped back once to give him room to stand. When he'd brushed off his shirt—his coat was hiding a bundle of Z deep within the trash—and looked up, her posture had relaxed.

His needle was at her neck in a moment.

"You don't have anything better to do than play games?" she asked.

"You don't have anything better to do than to harass an honest businessman?" he countered. She laughed, loudly.

He shut her up with his mouth.

The routine was the same as before. This time, he could feel tiny lines of scabbed abrasions on her hips and ass, caused by their last encounter. He didn't like the feel of them under his fingers, so he protected her skin with his hands as he fucked her against the wall, though he couldn't tell you why it mattered.

This time, he won; a throaty and angry moan tore from her throat when she climaxed. He grinned, bit into the juncture of neck and shoulder as if to punctuate his victory. She yanked on his hair; he dropped her.

She barely caught herself.

"Bastard," she told him, retrieving her shorts—they'd struggled with them, and he'd eventually threatened to rip them in two if she didn't get them off now—from where they had been thrown. He admired the view when she bent over.

"Whore," he replied cheerfully, meaning no real harm; everyone was these days.

A bullet whizzed by his head to bury itself in the concrete wall with a crack.

"Not me, darling," she purred as she lowered the smoking gun. He hadn't heard it fire; hadn't even seen her grab it. "A bitch, yes. Never a whore."

He said nothing. He wasn't shot at often, and never by someone that fast or sure. It was unnerving. Instead, he returned to his dumpster.

She paused by it as she was leaving. Their eyes met, for a moment; he felt that same tug in his gut.

"Thanks," she said suddenly, grinning broadly, and was gone before he could reply.

He still resented her for that the next time they met. She was standing on a corner, gun held loose in her hand, eyes and ears watching for something. He was famous for being silent, and behind her.

She tensed when the needle pricked the skin at the base of her skull. A moment, and then the gun was pressed to his temple—upside down, to allow for their position.

He grabbed her wrist and forced it down. She went completely still, now fully aware of how bad her angle was.

"Don't thank me like a common whore," he growled into her ear. It was lower than before; she wasn't wearing her heels, which made him taller than her by eight inches. "I'm not your plaything."

"And I'm not yours," she replied. He paused.

After a moment, he let her go. She holstered her gun and adjusted her jacket before turning to face him. He understood the gesture, and appreciated it.

Things went differently this time. He pulled her in first, looking down into her face with that leer that made the street addicts go soft. She tilted her head, played with the vials of Z hanging on his belt with one hand. The other was lightly gripping his coat.

"You wear too much," she told him. He responded by slowly getting to his knees, his arms sliding down to be wrapped around her thighs. His face was level with her chest.

"You don't," he observed, and began to kiss and lick his way down the exposed skin. She observed him drily at first, but when he pulled the neckline of her shirt down using his teeth, she made a small sound of appreciation and tilted her head back.

He stood then, and she led him further down the side street, ducking into an alcove before pressing against him. The tight space made things difficult and easy at the same time, restricting them and giving them something to push against.

The teasing turned into taunts turned into insults, vented though their bodies: his thrusts, her bites and well-placed hands. It ended up almost as angry as their first meeting, save that there was no competition. She was too distracted; he was in too good of a mood.

When they finished—at the same time, surprisingly—with a hard thrust and a sharp moan, he rested her head in her shoulder for a minute before letting her down. She didn't step away from him before pulling down her dress, running her hands through her hair—he caught a flash of white from the covered eye, but no more.

They stepped out of the niche together, pretty as you please. A wink from her, a mocking bow from him, and they went their separate ways.

The fourth time, she sought him out, and she brought Z.

He was at the edge of Sanitarium Square, kicking through the canvas of crumpled, gaudily-colored tents in search of loot, when the gun clicked. He turned—reaching for his needles, though they weren't worth shit at long-distance—to see her put it away.

The click had been the safety engaging.

There was something in her eyes that bothered him. It wasn't like he liked her—she was merely an amusement for him, as he knew he was for her—and he had no stock in whether she lived or died, but the anger and need in her one visible eye made him glad he didn't have any obligations. Then she held up the vial—same size as his, full to the brim, and glowing the clear blue of medical-grade Zydrate—and his eyes widened.

"Where'd you get it?" he asked. She shook her head.

"I told you I have my sources."

Her voice was thick and hungry.

He said nothing more, only reached for his gun and took the vial from her. One shot to her neck—carefully aimed, so it would go immediately into her bloodstream—and he handed the gun to her. She pressed it against his neck—her hands were steady, surprisingly—and fired.

He took the gun. She took the vial, half-empty but still glowing bright, and slipped it into a hidden pouch on her belt. He turned, led the way to where he'd been planning on sleeping that night: a spot huddled between two buildings, dark and cushioned with canvas he'd dragged over. He sank to his knees, wrapped one hand around her hip, and pulled her close. His lips ghosted over the skin above her knee, creeping higher and higher—and then her head tipped back, and her breathing deepened. The Zydrate had worked. From her endurance, she'd been on it a long time, with a lot of control.

The drug clicked for him not a minute afterwards. He dimly remembered pulling her down, her hands undoing his belt, the heat of skin as they connected, how they had to hush each other so they wouldn't get caught, but the rest was a swirl of colors and sensations.

When he awoke from the drug-and-sex-induced semi-coma, she was just sitting up. Her clothes were rumpled, slick in the half-light from something he suspected wasn't sweat or sex. She turned when he moved, met his eyes. They said nothing.

He sat up and squirmed his way back into his pants—his tolerance was impressive, but the Zydrate still left him feeling like a ragdoll when he came down from a high. She looked around for her gun; he picked it up and handed it to her. She nodded, stood, still said nothing.

He watched her as she turned to go, hesitated. A moment, and then she reached into the fold of her belt and pulled out the vial, turned, knelt, dropped it into his hand, and left.

The little glass of blue glow said more than the thank you would have.

The next time, something had changed. She snuck up on him, slipped a hand around his neck from behind. Her breath was heavy on his ear.

"No gun?" he asked. The barrel prodded his shoulder for a second as if in jest.

"You use the rest of the glow?" she asked, coming around to face him. He shook his head.

"Too good to waste," he told her. She smiled at his gratitude.

She leaned back against the wall, gun back in the holster on her hip. The way she tilted her spine made her look all curves, particularly in the black body suit she was wearing.

"This is new," he noted appreciatively, one hand tugging lightly on the zipper.

"It's a bitch to get on, but necessary," she grumbled. He raised an eyebrow.

"Necessary? For what?" His voice was nonchalant, but he was curious—more curious than he ought to be.

"For—Oh, so close." She brought one hand to her lips in an infuriatingly mocking fashion. "I almost spilled." The levity vanished. "My job. Nothing more."

So that was that. He looked back to the street, where one of his clients was supposed to show.

He'd brought the kid here once, where she'd learned about the scum of the city and the drive that seized them, and her idol's impending death. All fairly trivial matters, in the grand scheme of things, but as his eyes landed on the Zydrate Support poster, he was seized by a sudden sharp emotion. Nothing poignant, or describable, but it was enough to make his breathing change.

The woman he was waiting for strode into the alley. She smirked at him, and he smirked back, noting with disgust the white scum she hadn't entirely cleaned off her cheek and the rattiness of her short dreadlocks.

She strolled up to him, turned shoulder coyly as she offered payment. He snatched it, leered, as usual, slipped a vial of bootleg into the gun and pressed it against her skin with a gratuitous caress that made her eyes close in ecstasy.

The drug slipped into her bloodstream with a hydraulic hiss. She smiled at him with fluttering eyes, grazed a hand over his cheek, and turned to go.

She only made it a few yards before slumping against the wall. He knew this, though he didn't see it; he had turned and walked away.

The quiet click of heels told him his companion was following.

She waited until they were two streets away before speaking.

"That's who you cater to?" she asked, voice contemptuous. He shot her a look over his shoulder.

"You're not one to get up on a high horse about it," he reprimanded. Her face darkened.

"I am," she told him, voice sharp, "because I don't whore myself out to earn gold for a hit."

"But you still whore yourself out," he muttered, turned to face front again.

She grabbed the back of his jacket and yanked him to a stop. "Say what?" she asked, low and angry. The gun was against his head again; for some reason, he didn't care.

"You still whore yourself out," he repeated. "What else do you call this?" 'This' was indicated with a sweeping gesture that took in him, her, and the dull streets around them.

"I call it sex," she said sharply. "Fucking around. Screwing. A series of erotic escapades. But you're not paying me. I'm not a whore."

"I could," he offered. She glared at him.

"With what? Cheap black-market glow?"

"No." He could feel the vial she had given him at that comment, tucked into his shirt pocket. It was too valuable to take off his person. "No."

She relaxed. She'd seen the anger and conflict in his face.

"So even the great Grave Robber is vulnerable," she murmured. He glared at her; she laughed. "Don't deny it."

He turned and started walking away. She caught his arm and pulled him in a different direction: toward a better district. Toward a residential area.

He pulled back—not inside. That was too soft, too intimate.

"I know what I'm doing," she told him, turning back once to meet his eyes, and then continued on.

She did know. She led him to a brick building in a sea of brick buildings, as nondescript and poorly lit as the rest. Instead of heading for the front door, however, she moved toward the side, where an old fashioned fire escape was bolted to the wall. A jump and a grab, and the ladder, which was partially extended, clattered all the way down.

She led the way up. He didn't complain, preferring to admire the view.

The building was short—three stories—and the roof was a mess of half-grown gardens, trash bins shoved against one wall, scattered cigarettes, a few dilapidated chairs, and one bare mattress.

"Cheap," he noted. She grinned.

"Available. And private."

"Private?" He glanced to his right and left—there were buildings all around, all high enough for someone on the upper floors to see down on to this roof.

"Private." She gave the mattress a kick as she pointed. The windows were all boarded over or shuttered. The mattress skidded over to the shadow the door leading into the building cast, and he realized that she did indeed know exactly what she was talking about.

And then her hands were cradling his face, her lips were on his, and there were more important matters to be addressed.

He took his time unzipping the body suit. It was _nice_. She watched him, amusement on her face, as he slowly slid the zipper down the tracks that went from neck to left knee, lips and fingers following the zipper the whole way down.

The present was well worth the wrapping.

It was slow, if not particularly easy. She still dug her nails into his arms, he still thrust a little too hard. But they kissed, hot hungry kisses that changed to slow ones as they came down from the high.

"Hmm." She rolled over onto her stomach after he flopped down on the mattress beside her, and stole his coat to cover herself.

"Hmm?" he glanced at her. She smiled.

"Just hmm."

She walked him back to Addict's Alley, saying she had things to do in his district. When he stopped, leaning against the wall to wait for his next buyer, she kept walking, though she turned to walk backwards a few paces. Their eyes met, she winked. He bowed, mockingly.

Neither one expected it when they next met. She was running, he was running, from different people. He was checking behind him, she was checking behind her, and they had no idea until they collided that the other one was anywhere near.

He grabbed her out of instinct, before he registered who was in front of him. She stared up at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending, and he was struck by two things in rapid succession.

One, her right eye. The hair that usually covered it was pulled back. It was smoky white—blind—and marked with three crisscrossing scars. He understood why she kept it covered.

Two, her face. Her cheeks and neck were smeared with blood, and the look on her face was just short of fear. It didn't belong.

The police siren blared behind him. He glanced back, cussed, and grabbed her arm, hauling her down a dark alley. She stumbled after him, regained her feet, and followed without falling behind, despite her heels. They ran long and hard, weaving through the streets with intent to confuse. She led at one point, scrambling through tunnels and passages he didn't know existed.

It was at least an hour before they stopped, in a place he didn't recognize and wasn't concerned with. He dropped his back against the nearest wall, struggling to catch his breath. She fell to her knees, panting hard.

He lifted his head after several long moments, looking around. They were by the graveyard, in the only part of the city that wasn't covered with concrete developments. There was no sound of pursuit—even the guard sweeping the cemetery was far enough away to be silent.

He looked at her. She hadn't moved, save for her chest, which was moving too rapidly and irregularly to be panting.

She was shaking.

"Hey." He knelt, touched her shoulder. "Hey."

Nothing.

He shook her gently. She recoiled, raising one hand in front of her face; there was a severe powder burn on her hand, hidden by the blood and cuts.

"What happened?"

She shook her head. "Work."

"Work?"

"Work." She shot him a sarcastic look, less scathing because of the fear still in her eyes and her uncontrollable shaking. Her voice was airless.

"Breathe," he ordered. She blinked and, as if she had needed reminding, sucked in a deep breath. A long pause—he wondered if he needed to remind her to finish—and then she sighed, heavy and exhausted and punctuated with quivers.

"Sorry," she said suddenly.

"Good." He was displeased that he'd had to cart her all over the city; he'd lost the police barely a minute after joining her.

"Not for that. For this."

"For what?" He frowned at her, at the weird rushed quality in her voice. She opened her mouth, and passed out.

As erotic as having a woman's face in his lap was, he was more worried than aroused. He picked her up, figuring it was better to get out of the torchlight that lit the tunnel, and headed for a shadowed corner of the cemetery. She was breathing now, at least.

Her bodysuit was torn and blackened with fire and blood. Cuts laced across her skin, shallow and already clotting. The air was chilling rapidly—he covered her with his coat. There was nothing more he could do. He sat back against a headstone, one eye on the guard. Exhaustion weighed heavy on his bones, more so the longer he sat, and despite his efforts, he slowly drifted off to sleep.

When he awoke, she was gone. His coat was folded on the ground beside him. The half-vial of Zydrate she had given him was gone, too—he could feel the lightness in his shirt pocket—but two new, full vials were in the pocket of his coat.

He went back to his dumpster.

She reappeared two days later. He was in Addict's Alley, selling, as usual, entertaining two customers with his voice and wares. It wasn't until the two were passed out on the ground in a drugged stupor that he realized she had been watching from the shadows.

"How long have you been there?" he asked.

"Long enough," she said, stepping into the light. The tug in his gut returned, for different reasons; she was dressed the same as always—black lacy skirt, tight top, high black boots and gun on her hip—but her skin was severely marred. Bristly black lines of stitches traced the cuts on her chest, and there were purple-black bruises around her arms and neck. Hand-shaped ones.

He pulled the Zydrate vial from his shirt pocket and made to insert it into the gun—she stopped him with a raised hand.

There was a moment of tension: She was asking, and he was trying to figure out what it was she wanted.

Then he fully registered her expression—the lack of a smirk, the softness in her eyes—and understood. The drug was put away. He took her hand, lifted it to his lips with just enough of the usual mockery, and said, "Lead the way."

She took him home. It was a small apartment, a studio with a kitchenette and a bathroom, and it was unexpected. The closet was full of black, cream and lace, the vanity well-stocked with makeup—most of which, he noticed, was concealer—the bookshelf full to bursting, an old couch worn from use.

The bed, piled high with pillows and thick blankets—obviously the most expensive thing she owned—looked far too inviting.

Without a word, she locked the door and began to take off her boots. Once she was in her bare feet, she turned to him and held out her hands. "Shall I take your coat?"

"Nice." He smirked. "You're good at pretending you're civilized."

"I'm more civilized than you, street rat," she said drily. He saw the tiny quirk at the corner of her lips.

"I like being on the streets," he told her as he took off his coat and draped it over the arm of the couch. "I'm my own master."

"I'm sure you repeat that to yourself every winter night as you freeze your ass off," she replied, unbuckling the belt that held her gun and hanging it up. He frowned—he still had his needles. She was being careless. Why?

"I don't owe anyone anything," he countered, dropping his bag and beginning to unbuckle his boots. She smirked at him as she moved to the sink, filled a glass of water.

"Of course you don't. Nothing obvious."

He looked up from the time-consuming task with a frown. She gestured to the belt across his hips, and the blue glow coming from it. "That's a debt you owe to every druggie whose gold you've taken."

"Really."

"It's unspoken." She was smug behind the rim of her glass. He didn't like it.

"And what do I owe you, for giving me these?" He plucked one of the vials of clear blue from his pocket. She paused.

"This," she said simply. "Give me this, and the debt is repaid."

He didn't need her to say what 'this' was. He pulled off his boots, dropped the belt on the sofa, and walked toward her. She offered him the water—he accepted it, drained the glass, and set it down on the counter. "Tell me what I need to know," he said, uncharacteristic in his consideration.

"I hurt," she replied seriously. "A lot. And I want you to pretend."

He understood. He took her face in his hands, carefully, and was satisfied with how his hands eclipsed the bruises left by someone else. The kiss was long, soft, and gentle—he could taste a bloody tang in her mouth, and discovered with a quick sweep of his tongue that the inside of her lip was swollen. She leaned into him, let him lead her gently to the bed, let out a small hiss of a moan when his hand slipped gently up the side of her leg.

He picked her up and set her back on the pillows, leaning over her. His hand reached for her shirt, lifted it, helped her slip it over her head. She winced when he touched the stitches, and he apologized with his lips against her neck.

She hesitated, then pressed up against him. He stripped them both, carefully, wary of her stitches and bruises—and bothered to see the ones on the insides of her thighs and hips; the latter did not match his hands.

He was soft, and careful. She moved against him, slowly, warming up to the movement and the build of tension, of need. He could hear the pain in her voice as she hissed, then gradually began to moan. Softly.

The end was sweet and just as gentle as the beginning. Instead of leaving, he pushed the pretend game a little farther, settling beside her and pulling the blanket over them both.

Neither of them cared about the reason for the gentleness; they both knew it was acting, just a play. But he did pretend, and pretended well, because she needed him to, and he owed her.

That was all.

He awoke in the middle of the night. She was fast asleep, breathing deep and even. He slipped out of the bed, dressed, and pulled the pure Zydrate from his pocket.

He watched her for a long moment before slipping the drug into the gun and pressing it against her neck. He was debating; she hadn't wanted it, but she had been in pain.

He pulled the trigger, dressed, and left.

He didn't see her again.

Two weeks later, he was wading through the body dump, heading for a new delivery. A helicopter had dropped four bodies, all shrouded in white, not ten minutes earlier.

He ripped the first shroud open, and immediately winced. A man not much older than him stared up, blind and unseeing. His throat had been slit, and a roll of clear assignment film shoved into the incision.

He hated open-faced deaths. Purposefully looking away from the man's eyes, he pushed in the needle, withdrew the Zydrate, and covered the man's face again.

The second corpse, he was more gentle with. A quick feel through the muslin, and he was able to slice the fabric right above her mouth, withdraw the Zydrate, and close it again.

He did the same to the third, and the fourth. As he was moving to close the incision in the fourth shroud, there was a rumble, and the bodies supporting him shifted as they settled. The fabric ripped in his grip as he stumbled.

He cussed, jerked his foot out of a child's chest cavity before looking back to his victim.

Something tugged in his gut. Hard.

Her one good eye had been slashed through—the whites had turned bright red, the irises black. The bruise on her cheek had faded to yellow, but the ones around her throat were renewed. The slice through her windpipe was deep and jagged, the film shoved in untidily. Angrily. She was still warm.

He pulled out the film with an unsteady hand, unrolled it, and held it up to the light. There was blood smeared across the black letters, but he could see enough. See that she was twenty-five years old, 5'3'', Caucasian with black hair and one blind eye, one seeing. All things he had known.

And then the film told him she was an assassin, a mercenary-for-hire. Told him she went against Gene-Co, then went to work for them. Told him she had been tracked down by her previous employer three weeks before the date of death. Told him she had been found, tortured for information. Told him she had escaped, escaped for a tiny window of three days, before being dragged back to the prison where she was burned, whipped, carved, beaten, raped. On and on, for two weeks.

It told him that when it had been determined that she would not speak, the report was typed up and her throat was slit. She was disposed of with fellow traitors. In so many words—legalese, all of it—her life and purpose were summed up.

He could do nothing.

He placed the Zydrate he had taken from her into his shirt pocket, tucked the film next to her head. And then he ripped open the shroud the rest of the way.

He had been right. Her clothes remained, to a degree. What was important was the belt, and the gun that lay in its holster. Her scarred wrists told him about the fury she felt at being mocked, her weapon so close and yet so useless, because she couldn't reach it.

He took the gun, sliding it inside his coat, and closed the shroud like a curtain. That was all.

He went back to his dumpster.

The Graverobber was a practical man. He had no home, so that the authorities could never track him down. He kept no close confidants, so that he would never be betrayed. He carried no excess, so that he was not weighed down.

But from then on, one little hint of impracticality snuck into his life, in the form of an empty, old-fashioned gun. He didn't know where to find bullets for it, but he kept it around anyway, figuring it would come in use someday. In lieu of bullets, he kept inside the gun three vials of Zydrate: Two, crystal clear and blue as a summer's sky, and one, cloudy, cheap bootleg.

There was no secret, no hidden meaning. The gun stayed in the bottom of his bag, nothing more than an extra pound that he forgot about soon enough.

The dreams, too, did their time and left. Dreams of heat, of sex, of a smirk and a mocking laugh, and a fight between bodies with no clear winner.

Those faded quickly, replaced with other things.

And he knew there had never been anything to it.

 But he never sold the Z.


End file.
